undrendo1d ago

From https://lemmy.ca/post/62278765 :

Software changes for compliance with age-verification laws are being pushed a bit everywhere in Linux-development; for example:

- In Systemd <https://github.com/systemd/systemd/pull/40954>, already merged.

- In xdg.desktop.portal <https://github.com/flatpak/xdg-desktop-portal/pull/1922> (a portal frontend service for Flatpak and other desktop containment frameworks), still open.

- In Arch Linux <https://github.com/archlinux/archinstall/pull/4290>, still open.

- In Freedesktop.org <https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/accountsservice/accountsservice/-/merge_requests/176>, still open.

It’s interesting that it’s the same small group of people behind these pull requests, and that discussion threads in them have been locked owing to a great amount of negative criticisms.

They say “we have to comply with the law”. Which also means that if “the law” in the future will require proper verification, handling to 3rd-parties, or whatnot, then they will comply.

Well, it’s their right to. They don’t owe anything to anyone, and are under no obligation to report to users or to the community, nor to pay heed to anybody’s wishes.

If things proceed in this direction, we users may at some point have to choose between privacy-friendly Linux distributions or legal Linux distributions. People who, like me, are worried, need to start thinking about concrete actions to take before it’s too late: where to develop such distros? which channels to download and distribute them from? And so on. (And of course, more generally we need to write and protest to politicians, organize protest marches, go on strike, refuse to comply...)

It’s good to remind to those who keep on repeating the words “legal” and “illegal” that for example Nelson Mandela <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Mandela> was, technically speaking, a criminal who did and promoted illegal activity. This happens when laws become immoral.

#linux #privacy #uspol #eupol

Will we have to choose between privacy-friendly Linux distros vs legal Linux distros? - Lemmy.ca

Software changes for compliance with age-verification laws are being pushed a bit everywhere in Linux-development; for example: - In Systemd [https://github.com/systemd/systemd/pull/40954], already merged. - In xdg.desktop.portal [https://github.com/flatpak/xdg-desktop-portal/pull/1922] (a portal frontend service for Flatpak and other desktop containment frameworks), still open. - In Arch Linux [https://github.com/archlinux/archinstall/pull/4290], still open. - In Freedesktop.org [https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/accountsservice/accountsservice/-/merge_requests/176], still open. It’s interesting that it’s the same small group of people behind these pull requests, and that discussion threads in them have been locked owing to a great amount of negative criticisms. They say “we have to comply with the law”. Which also means that if “the law” in the future will require proper verification, handling to 3rd-parties, or whatnot, then they will comply. Well, it’s their right to. They don’t owe anything to anyone, and are under no obligation to report to users or to the community, nor to pay heed to anybody’s wishes. If things proceed in this direction, we users may at some point have to choose between privacy-friendly Linux distributions or legal Linux distributions. People who, like me, are worried, need to start thinking about concrete actions to take before it’s too late: where to develop such distros? which channels to download and distribute them from? And so on. (And of course, more generally we need to write and protest to politicians, organize protest marches, go on strike, refuse to comply…) It’s good to remind to those who keep on repeating the words “legal” and “illegal” that for example Nelson Mandela [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Mandela] was, technically speaking, a criminal who did and promoted illegal activity. This happens when laws become immoral.

Show threadspacebug1d ago
@pglpm how would you react if they wanted to know your real name, email address, phone number and room number?
(Because they already want that and nobody has rises their eyebrows)
Show threadundrendo

@spacebug I'm not sure what you mean. Depending on where I go, physically or on the net, I may need to validate name or email address and so on; say if I want to buy wine at a wine shop (at least in my country). Which means I may also decide not to buy any wine.

These laws are targeted, in the long run, at requiring a 3rd-party verification system in my laptop's OS. Well no, thank you. It's my laptop, and I don't want such a verification system. The road to this is made of very small changes, and I think it's important to plant my feet already now.

Mar 24 at 7:31pmWeb
Show threadspacebug1d ago
@pglpm if you open a terminal in Linux and run the command to add a new user, it will ask you for these questions already. And you can ofcourse just press enter to not enter anything into these fields.
If there will be added the option to enrter a bithdate then just press enter to not enter anything.
Show threadundrendo1d ago
@spacebug The problem is not now, is where this is *going to*. Would you be OK to have to use 3rd-party age-verification in order to *install* and *boot* your OS? This kind of changes start small and proceed by many small steps, each one seemingly innocuous.
Show threadspacebug1d ago
@pglpm no, and why would it?
The systemd database already as a field for avatar and I haven't seen anyone talking about how that can be used to being forced to upload you photoID to verify your identity.
It's just an optional field.
Show threadundrendo1d ago
@spacebug Optional for now.
Show threadspacebug1d ago
@pglpm the only way to force this is to make changes to BIOS that makes it impossible to boot systems that does not comply with age-verification.
And if they do that then changing distro will make no difference at all because you cant even boot it.